Where the Curtain Keeps Rising
by Renaly
Summary: Castiel's first meeting with Dean does not happen in Hell. It's just the first one he's allowed to remember.


_The way you slam your body into mine reminds me I'm alive,_

_but monsters are always hungry, darling,_

_and they're only a few steps behind you..._

* * *

_Castiel will never be able to put into words what it was that caused his attention to shift. One moment, he is listening to the instructions along with Hester and Uriel, and the next his heads are turning, all of them, towards the same spot, and—oh._

_His Father alone creates the souls that the humans' fragile bodies possess. They are all unique, and they are all beautiful._

_This one is… different._

_Castiel does not know why he happened to look over just as it is flickering into existence. He does not know what the strange feeling is that begins inside of him as he looks upon the creation of this impossible, awe-inspiring being._

_All he knows is that he never wants to look away._

* * *

The first time he meets her, she is called Abiah.

"My name is Castiel," he tells her. "I am an angel of the Lord."

He has just smote a demon whose intention was to harm her. Most people would express their gratitude, or kneel, or at least look surprised.

She glares. "I was fully capable of handling it."

Her soul is pure light, burning brightly inside her body. It is the most beautiful thing he's ever seen.

* * *

_In Egypt, there is a man called Oren._

_The sun blazes in the sky as Oren and the other slaves toil to build golden tombs for a pharaoh who believes he is a god._

_Oren works harder than most, yet still finds the energy to support his much younger brother. Castiel watches, transfixed._

_Castiel finds a slave master in possession of water and whispers into his ear. He takes control of his body in a matter of moments._

_Wearing the man's flesh, Castiel approaches Oren, holding out the flask of water. "Drink," he says._

_Oren eyes him suspiciously, sweat dripping down his dark skin. After a long while, he accepts the water._

_Castiel turns away, satisfied. When he leaves the slave master's body and returns to observing unseen, he realizes that Oren has given the water to his brother instead. Castiel is not as surprised as he ought to be._

_A few months later, the order is given that all firstborn children whose doors are not marked with lamb's blood are to be killed._

_Castiel hesitates._

* * *

After a few months, Abiah's dislike of him has simmered down into grudging respect. At times, he fancies that she actually cares about him.

Her hand is bleeding. "Aren't you going to heal me?" she asks him almost mockingly.

Castiel presses two fingers to her forehead. The wound disappears.

She flicks her dark red hair out of her face and gives him something that could be considered a smile. "Thank you."

He does not reply. He merely stares at her.

* * *

_Catherine Webber sits in a jail cell in a town called Salem._

_Other prisoners are sobbing and pleading, but Catherine does neither._

_Tomorrow she will be burned for crimes she did not commit. Her little sister, Anne, however, will be spared. She is content._

_The woman in the cell across from her has been wailing nonstop for nearly an hour when suddenly she quiets._

_Catherine looks up curiously, and finds that the woman is standing up and staring directly at her. Before Catherine can say anything, the woman disappears from the cell. Catherine moves to the bars of her own cage and peers out._

_In less than a second, the woman is now standing in front of Catherine. She places a hand on the locked door of the cell, and Catherine hears a click._

_The door opens._

_The woman beckons with her finger, and leads Catherine past the snoring guard and out of the jail._

_It isn't until they are standing under the night sky that the woman speaks. "Go," she tells Catherine. "Find Anne and leave. Don't look back."_

_Catherine opens her mouth—though she has no idea what she would ask—but the strange woman is gone again._

_Making up her mind, Catherine turns and creeps silently through the town, searching for her house where Anne sleeps fitfully._

_An hour later, the two girls are slipping away into the night. Castiel's true form is not capable of smiling the way humans can, but he supposes that what he's doing now is a close approximation._

* * *

Rachel, Abiah's younger sister, has bright eyes, a gentle laugh, and baby fat still rounding her cheeks.

Castiel kneels beside her, observing the knife in her gut.

Abiah is cradling her, whispering nonsense words. She looks up at him, tears dripping onto Rachel's face. "Please," she sobs.

He's never seen Abiah this broken. Even when she'd been kidnapped by demons, she'd taunted them until they gagged her.

He waves his hand over Rachel's middle. A moment later, there's no trace of blood on either of the sisters. Rachel sits up, touching her smooth stomach experimentally.

That night, Abiah pulls him into her bed, kissing him over and over. He murmurs prayers in Enochian along her spine.

* * *

_Once the trains arrive at the camp, the men and women are separated._

_Rivka screams as the guards tear her away from her older brother. Yosef clasps the little girl's hands and swears on his life that they will see each other again._

_Yosef spends months working on his escape plan._

_Castiel watches his preparations; the plan will fail, this he knows with certainty._

_On a brisk day in the middle of September, Castiel spends hours tormenting the only guard capable of housing him. Once night falls, he becomes desperate. He screams until the man's ears bleed, twists, manipulates, until the man whimpers, "Yes."_

_It is too late. Yosef has already puts his plan into action, and the rest of the guards have already filled his torso with bullets._

_The guards have no time to scream—for neither did Yosef—before they fall to the ground one by one, smoke rising from their blackened eye sockets._

_Yosef is right there, right in front of him, lying in the dirt. Castiel is so close. He reaches out to touch him, and his fingers brush the cloth of his shirt—_

_Then he feels his siblings' hands on him, dragging him away._

_Naomi stares down at him, disappointed. "What a troublesome thing you are," she says as he fights against the restraints that pin him to the chair. "Do you know how many times we've had to do this?"_

_She rips into his mind until the name 'Yosef' is as forgotten as Oren or Catherine._

* * *

After that, anytime Castiel is not with her becomes agony—more so than it was before. He finds that he prefers to spend all his time on Earth wrapped in her arms.

It's not long before he's touching the swell of her abdomen, and the tiny life inside is responding to his presence.

Unfortunately it is not a good time to be distracted. Heaven is restless. Then again, nothing has been right since Lucifer Fell.

"Be careful," his garrison leader, Anael, warns him. "Some of our superiors feel you are getting to close to the human girl. They worry you're getting attached."

Castiel nods politely and turns to go.

Anael stops him. "Something's coming," she tells him. "There have been new orders. I don't know what they are, but I heard rumors that the archangels have been given a special task. Keep watch over your human."

* * *

_Castiel does not like visiting Metatron. Heaven's prison is distasteful enough, but the fact that Metatron is, as Dean would say, "a giant dick," does not help. But Metatron has asked for him specifically._

_"What do you want?" Castiel asks._

_"Why, I just wanted to thank you," Metatron says, false innocence on his face. "My spell wouldn't have been possible without you."_

_"You stole my Grace and used it to cast all the angels out of Heaven. Those were your actions, not mine. I played no willing part in this."_

_Metatron clucks his tongue, and Castiel resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Oh, Castiel," he says. "You are the least self-aware angel to ever exist, and that's saying something. You haven't figured it out yet?"_

_Metatron likes knowing things that they don't, likes to hold it over their heads. Castiel waits._

_Leaning close to the bars of his cell, Metatron beckons him closer. "Those three ingredients I used in my spell? The heart of a Nephilim, the bow of a Cupid, and the Grace of an angel? Haven't you ever wondered how they're all connected?"_

_Castiel has considered it. "They're all items that tie Heaven to Earth."_

_Metatron waves his hand impatiently. "Yes, the Nephilim and the bow are obvious. But it had to be your Grace, Castiel. Do you know why?"_

_He does, of course he does. If Castiel had a heartbeat, it would sound like _DeanDeanDeanDean_. But he refuses to say it to Metatron._

_It doesn't matter; Metatron already knows. "The Grace of an angel in love with a human," he says gleefully._

_Castiel turns to walk away._

_"The bow that shot them!" Metatron cries._

_Castiel pauses. Turns back around._

_"What?" he whispers._

_Metatron grins maliciously. "The bow that shot them," he repeats. "I needed your Grace because you're in love with a human. But I needed that specific bow because it's the one that shot you two in the first place."_

_Castiel shakes his head. "Cupid never shot Dean and I."_

_"Oh, not Dean! Don't you remember? They probably erased your memory, I suppose. They have a tendency of doing that. They didn't shoot Dean—at least, not while he was Dean. They shot his first incarnation, hundreds of years ago. The one that you met first. The one you fell in love with."_

_Castiel wracks his brain, searching for a memory, a gap, something that would suggest that he and Dean knew each other in Dean's previous life. "You're lying," he says without conviction._

_Metatron ignores him. "But you wanna know the best part?" He waits, but Castiel doesn't say anything._

_"That Nephilim whose heart I took? The one I convinced you to kill? Guess who she was."_

_It takes Castiel less than a second. "No."_

_"Yes." Metatron grips the bars of his prison, eyes gleaming. "The Grace of an angel in love with a human. The bow that shot them. And the product of their love. Your own daughter, and you didn't even know!"_

_Castiel runs out of the prison, Metatron's cackles following him all the way._

* * *

Abiah's skin is warm and soft. The moonlight falls from the window and illuminates the curves of her body.

A small noise comes from cradle next to her bed. The infant inside waves a fist in the air; Castiel catches it, and she curls her hand around his finger.

_Yael_.

He is broken from his inspection of this perfect creation by a screeching voice in his head. The world goes black for a moment.

When he comes to, Yael is whimpering softly in response to his distress. He soothes her with a touch, and ponders the incident. The voice was that of the archangel Gabriel, which confuses him before he realizes that Gabriel was not contacting him directly.

Quickly, Castiel transports himself to Heaven, to Uriel's side. Judging by the way Uriel is wincing, he too heard Gabriel's cry of pain.

"Uriel, brother, what is the meaning of this? What happened to Gabriel?" he asks.

"Michael and Raphael," Uriel says. "They received instruction from our Father to wipe out the abominations."

"Demons?" Castiel asks, puzzled. That is already the goal of all angels.

"Not just demons," Uriel answers. "All the half breeds. Children of angels and humans."

If Castiel had blood, it would freeze. "You mean Nephilim?"

Uriel watches him carefully. "Yes."

Somehow Castiel manages to tamper down on his distress. "I see," he says distractedly. "I should… go then." And he rushes away.

Locating Gabriel would normally be difficult, but the archangel is not bothering to cloak himself right now.

Castiel finds him kneeling in a field.

"Brother," he starts, but Gabriel is suddenly facing him, blade pressed to Castiel's throat.

"What do you want?" he hisses. "Come to take something else?"

"No!" Castiel gasps. "Please, I need your help!"

Gabriel considers him, then withdraws his blade. Castiel glances behind him and sees the body of a golden-haired human, small enough to be a child. He averts his eyes hurriedly, but not before he notices the red stain on the child's clothes.

"My daughter, she was just born only a few hours ago," he tells Gabriel. "And her mother—"

"Is human," Gabriel surmises. "Well, I suppose I can dig another grave—"

Castiel drops to his knees. "Please, brother. Help me. Help her."

For a long while, Gabriel says nothing. Just when Castiel has given up hope, he smiles wryly. "Where's your human?"

When they arrive at Abiah's house, she is awake and clutching Yael to her chest. She looks up when he enters, smiling briefly, before noticing the expression on his face.  
"What is it?"

Castiel sits on the bed next to her. "They're going to kill her," he says.

Fear flashes in her eyes, then she sets her jaw. "How do we keep her safe?"

Gabriel steps forward. "That's where I come in." He moves toward her, hand outstretched. "I'm going to erase your memory," he tells her. "Take away all your memories of angels so that you'll never remember that one impregnated you."

She flinches and looks to Castiel.

Castiel nods once.

Abiah swallows. He leans in to kiss her. Breaking away is like ripping out his Grace.

"She won't be mortal," he whispers. "She'll have to find ways to keep herself safe. Teach her," he says, and Abiah nods frantically.

When it's over, Abiah is asleep.

"She'll wake up in a few hours with a nice headache, but no one should be able to tie you to the kid from looking at her memories," Gabriel informs Castiel.

"Thank you—"

"Don't thank me yet." Gabriel holds up a hand again. "I still have to do your side of the equation."

Castiel pulls back. "You mean—?"

Gabriel smiles sadly. "They're gonna go digging around in everyone's head to find out if there's anything they missed. You need to let me do this."

Closing his eyes, Castiel nods.

He feels Gabriel's palms on his temples, fingers curling around his head, then—

* * *

_Her name has been Ella for the past three hundred years when one day, she turns around in a marketplace in Northern England and sees a young blonde woman staring at her in amazement._

_Ella flinches back—not from the woman's gaze, but rather from the shadow that seems to cling to her very flesh._

_The woman walks brazenly up to her. "What are you?" she breathes._

_"I could ask you the same question," Ella says nervously._

_The woman smiles broadly. "My name is Jane Lupton. Come take a walk with me." She offers her hand, and Ella takes it hesitantly. The two walk to the edge of the market, along the path that winds through the countryside._

_"I'll tell you my story if you tell me yours?" the woman proposes._

_Ella considers it for a moment. "Very well."_

_Jane smiles again, sadly now. "My father was a greedy man," she begins. "Ten years ago, he decided that wealth and power were worth selling a soul for. So he contacted a demon."_

_She glances at Ella to gauge her reaction to the mention of such a creature, but Ella merely nods. Jane continues. "But when it came time to seal the deal, he asked his foolish daughter to trade away her soul instead." Jane sighs. "And I agreed."_

_Ella looks at her companion, understanding now the smoke-like shadow that hangs on her shoulders. "How long?"_

_"Sundown," Jane says softly. She points to a line of trees a ways away. "The beasts are waiting for me."_

_Squinting at the trees, Ella can just make out a pair of red eyes about waist high. She shivers._

_Jane shakes herself slightly, as if it is enough to dispel the dark thoughts, and faces Ella. "Your turn."_

_Ella is quiet for a moment. Part of her is reluctant to share such personal information with a stranger, but eventually she relents. This girl will not remember it anyway, not after a few decades in Hell. "Whenever I used to ask my mother about my father, she told me she didn't remember him. I always thought she was lying, or hiding something from me. But when I turned sixteen, I was visited by an archangel._

_"He told me that my father was an angel like him. My existence is forbidden, so my parents both agreed to give up their memories to keep me safe. Then the archangel burned sigils into my bones to hide me from the rest of the Host."_

_Jane is staring at her in wonder. "An angel," she says, barely above a whisper. She looks Ella up and down. "I can see people's true faces right now. And you, you glow. I wonder what a full angel would look like."_

_"He was using a vessel, but I could see his halo," Ella confides._

_"And what do you see when you look at me?" Jane asks._

_Ella searches for the right words. "Your soul, it's—" She breaks off._

_"Tainted?" Jane guesses wryly._

_"Claimed."_

_Jane hums thoughtfully. They stand in silence for a long time after that, the sun sinking ever farther towards the horizon._

_When the sky is streaked with pink and orange, Jane turns to Ella. "You never did tell me your name."_

_Ella smiles. "I pick a new one with each new country," she says. "Right now, it's Ella. When I was born, my mother named me Yael."_

_"And where is your mother now?"_

_"She died," Ella says. "She was mortal."_

_"Unlike you?"_

_Ella inclines her head in confirmation._

_Jane's face is melancholy. "Is it lonely? Living forever?"_

_There is a weight in Ella's chest that has existed since her mother's death. It feels a bit like the ocean, large and shifting and permanent. "Yes."_

_"Perhaps we should switch places," Jane jokes, but there's little humor in it._

_"Aren't you scared?"_

_"Terrified," Jane admits. She glances back at the trees. "You should go now."_

_"Maybe I can help. Fight them off or something. I'm stronger than I look," Ella offers._

_"No," Jane says firmly. "There's no getting out of this, not for me. Go."_

_Ella swallows. "But—"_

_"Yael," Jane says. "If there's one thing I've learned, it's that everyone needs something to live for. Even immortal beings. Especially them." She smiles._

_"What do I do?"_

_"You find a cause, and you serve it."_

_They part soon after that. Ella thinks on Jane's words, and decides that she disagrees. Her mother had had a cause as well—fighting the evil things in the night. All it had gotten her was an early grave._

_Still, when Ella boards a ship to the New World months later and they ask her what her name is, she says, "Jane."_

* * *

Castiel stands outside the entrance to the Men of Letters' bunker. Dean and Sam are inside, but he can't face them.

It's a bit of a surprise when he senses Gabriel next to him, but not much.

Castiel turns to him. "You died."

Gabriel gives him a patient look. "So did you. Three times."

He has a point.

"So the scribe told, huh?" Gabriel pops a Reese's into his mouth.

Cas shakes his head. "I still don't understand completely. Heaven erased my memories of meeting Dean in a past life?"

"Yes and no. I erased the first time," Gabriel admits. "They wiped all the ones after that."

"You?" Castiel stares at him. "Why?"

"Because you asked me to. Our dear older brothers were going to kill your little Nephilim; you wanted to keep her safe. Not that it did much good," he adds. "Sorry about that, by the way."

Cas looks away, processing. "Wait, the first time? I met him more than once?"

Gabriel snorts. "You're kidding, right? Try every time." Castiel must look doubtful, because Gabriel looks at him seriously. "You think it's a coincidence you were the one to find his soul in Hell? It's because that's what you do. You always find him."

They are both silent for a long time.

Finally, Castiel speaks. "Can you restore them?"

"Only the ones I tampered with."

Castiel nods, and Gabriel presses a hand to his forehead.

The sudden crash of _red hair, a laugh like sunlight, fingers dancing across his human skin_ brings him to his knees. He does not stand up for a long time. Gabriel kindly doesn't mention the tears that drip onto the grass.

* * *

_The fires of Hell blacken his wings, but Castiel keeps going._

_Through the swarms of demons he charges, again and again. Their claws sink into him, but he slashes at them and they scurry back._

_He moves onwards, through the blood and bone. Ten years are nothing to an angel, but it still feels like too long when he finally sees it, shining blindingly bright amidst the twisted black._

_When he reaches the man standing at the rack, Castiel clasps him firmly, marveling at the Righteous Man's beauty._

_Castiel ascends from Hell, cradling the precious soul in his arms._

_Dean Winchester is saved._

* * *

**A/N:** Thank you to La Femme Victorienne for beta'ing this.

This fic is also posted on archiveofourown: /works/3258434

Additionally, I'm on tumblr: deprofundisclamoadte . tumblr .com


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